Have you felt?

Wonder if we all go through this?Wonder why certain things plague more at times?

 

Have you wandered lonely in a crowd?

Sat at gatherings and not been there

Heard incessant chatter without listening

Shut out din and bustle blaring around

Given a smile that didn’t spread to your eyes

Just stretched your lips mechanically

 Heard the hollow echo of your own laugh

Been embarrassed by involuntary tears

Swallowed a lump in your throat

Yet entertained with your “humor”

Been praised for the gift of the gab

Eaten compulsively at banquets

As the only good thing to do

Shriveled at ladies boasting of their home making skills

Their motherly duties

Disapproving promiscuity

Tolerated sloshed men with overbearing “chivalry”

Felt an emptiness stirring within

Numbness at your fingertips

A gnawing pain inside

Wistful longing

Fleeting memories

Been sported around and expected to perform

Heard people confidently reading you wrong

Making judgments guided by norms and sanity

And profound commonsense

Leading you to doubt yourself

Struggled to say the right things

Tempted to speak your mind

Watched with dismay as

Your laughter broke into sobs

Stared unseeingly at life whizzing past

Felt inadequate, incompetent

Stranded amidst humanity

 

Reviews

[forfila]

You had me from the first line
"Have you wandered lonely in a crowd?"
Yes I have, you go on through some good points of the feelings that may arise from feeling
"Stranded amidst humanity"

I can relate well to this poem.
Much enjoyed.

Love,
Me

[CONTAGION PUBLISHING]

great job

[Sarah Erickson]

This a beautiful poem, and I think it resounds with many people. At some point or another, most everyone feels such things, but it's a feeling that is commonly accompanied by a feeling that they are the only one who has suffered through such things.
The line " Heard the hollow echo of your own laugh" I especially relate to.
The last line, "Stranded amidst humanity," seems to say, to me anyway, that everyone feels alone, stranded.
You describe the raw feeling of loneliness with blunt but beautiful language.

[E. M. Murren]

I have lived this poem. It is so honestly open. It is the cry of the artist alone in a crowd. You have expressed it beautifully. Cheers.

[[untitled]]

I have felt all those things and more! How very observant of you to pick up on human emotion in such a matter-of-fact way. There would be twenty or so separate poems in this one piece. It also brings home the frailty of the human psyche with a lucid 'slap in the face' you go you good thing! I was in awe of the magnitude with which you write. I found that I did not want it to end, I guess I expected a climactic answer of sorts, not sure why because if you could do that you would have in your possession 'The Nobel Peace Prize!' Congrats on a brilliant piece of writing...
Helen:)

[Floating on the feather..]

I feel this is me.....
I sit alone in the corner trying to avoid the bustling crowd. Always lost in a world that is not theirs but just mine.
I can so much relate to this piece and can identity with almost all the situations that you have put in a way that makes me so pensive.
The thoughts penned down by you are almost the same that I feel when I go to such social gatherings.
The lines are perfect.

Stupendous work.

[Imperfection]

Yes, I have.

Most of us will be able to identify with this, I believe.
I like your choice of words here. They convey the exact feeling - just the way it feels under those particular circumstances.
Brilliant piece of work.

[R J Askew]

Yes, I've felt many of those 'What the hell am I doing here?' moments, usually at social events I have no wish to be at. Being a man (ha ha!) I normally skulk in a corner somewhere and get quietly drunk, or -- the worst of all outcomes -- find a victim I can become satirically biting with at just about anything and anybody. I end up hating myself for getting drunk or being a pain. It's far easier to be alone.

[None]

I answered yes to more than one of your questions. Your writing begs for different answers and statements--such as, "What are you doing there?" and "You are too beautiful for them to understand!" Like a candle in the wind. Thank you for letting me see better through your eyes. Your poem is ultimately well written and raises some issues that need to be addressed.

[Nicholas Hallows]

Like Matthias, the first line drew me in and is a concept I have often thought about.
I can relate to many of the lines in this poem. Some of my favourite are:

Have you wandered lonely in a crowd?
Sat at gatherings and not been there

Given a smile that didn't spread to your eyes

Heard people confidently reading you wrong

NH